The annual Lebanon Student Star Pack 2012 award ceremony and
exhibition, in its third edition, was held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut on the 7th of March 2012.
Awarding excellence in packaging and fostering a culture of industry among the Lebanese youth, the
event was held under the patronage of His Excellency the Lebanese Minister of Industry, Mr. Vrej
Sabounjian and attracted an audience of over a thousand, among whose ranks were ambassadors,
diplomats, UN agencies representatives, industrialists, professors, and the 700 participating
university students. It was emceed by former Miss Lebanon, Mrs. Clemence Ashkar.

The event
saw the Minister ofIndustry Mr. Vrej Sabounjian deliver a keynote address in which he stressedthat
“Packaging is a key component for marketing industrial products and itdirectly improves sales, as do
good quality and reasonable prices,” and that“Good-quality packaging has a very good return on
investments as better saleseasily outweigh production costs.”

Dr. Fady Gemayel, President of
LibanPack, d welled on the challenges the packaging industry is facing in Lebanon, what with the
increasing energy costs threatening its competitiveness.He called on the government to create a $40
million fund to support this energy-intensive industry.

Khaled El Mekwad,representative of
the United Nations Industrial Development Organization,stressed the importance of the services
offered to industrialists by LibanPack,which is singular in its functions in the MENA region.

Her Excellency the Swiss Ambassador, Ruth Flint, highlighted the ingredients that render
LibanPack“a success story”, such as its being an active member of the World Packaging Organization,
whose board meeting will be hosted in Lebanon in 2013.

Vice President of the Lebanese
Industrialists Association Ziad Bekdache, who spoke on behalf of Nehmat Frem,the head of the
association, commended the Lebanese industrial sector, which“has been able to enter international
markets. We have succeeded in more than doubling industrial exports in the last five years to
reach $3.525 billion in 2011,” with “[our] full commitment to improving and developing
production”.

Director of LibanPack, Mrs.Soha Atallah, thanked the professors and their
respective universities for integrating the contest in their curricula and collaborating with
LibanPack to raise awareness of the importance of packaging among the youth.

Intermittent the
speeches was a musical set by Fayha’a Choir, after which awards were handed to eleven students whose
projects were lauded by a jury composed of eight leading experts in the fields of industrial design
and packaging.

Those were as follows:

Structural
category winners:

1st Prizewinner: Ralph Diab: NDU,

2nd Prizewinner: Lilly
Antonios: ALBA,

3rd Prizewinner: Nariman Borjas:LU Deir ElKamar,

3rd Prizewinner:
Eyad Saad: LIU.

Visual category winners:

1st Prizewinner: Giorgio
Bassil:USEK,

2nd Prizewinner: Fatima Tarchichi: USEK,

3rd Prizewinner: Khalil
Daou: LUHadath,

3rd Prizewinner: Zeinab Sleiman: USEK.

Bank Med Sustainability Award: Chloe Hallak: USEK.

Unipack Creative Design Award:
Darine Maatouk: USEK.

And manifesting its regional expansion, an award was handed out to the
best project from among twenty submissions from Egypt.